Former Chatterbox Bryon Russell Now Prefers The Quiet Life

June 12, 1997|By Skip Myslenski, Tribune Staff Writer.

SALT LAKE CITY — Know this about Utah forward Bryon Russell. He loved to talk. He loved, back when he joined the Jazz, to talk trash. He even went on the air and announced that news for all in proper-and-staid Salt Lake City to hear.

Jazz players and coaches just do not act that way. They can be as taciturn as John Stockton or as upright as Karl Malone or as competitive as Jerry Sloan, but never may they be one of those finger-pointing, chest-thumping, chattering magpies who now are proliferating in the NBA.

So here, guarding Michael Jordan in the Finals, we find a different Bryon Russell. He is just 26 and in his fourth year in the league. He is from Chicago, where he lived until he was 10, and now is facing his hometown team.

He is just a season removed from some serious pine time and suddenly he's matched against his game's greatest player. He is, in sum, just a vessel filled with intriguing story lines, yet here he adamantly refuses to expand on any of them with any real talk.

Only once, in fact, has his old self bubbled up near the surface, and that came after he heard Jordan, in a press conference, wonder if his first name was BY-ron or BRY-on.

But that's as outrageous as this former trash talker has been in this series that finds him unexpectedly in the spotlight, not only guarding Jordan but scoring 11 points with seven rebounds in Utah's 90-88 Game 5 loss.

How does it feel guarding Jordan?

"It's a tough task, but I get out there and just try to contain him," Russell says. "I know I won't stop the god of basketball."

Do you make changes in how you guard him?

"I don't think you have time to make changes," he replied. "You just go out there and go to war."

Do you know he's shooting 40 percent with you on him?

"That's good," he says. "I hope he shoots less than that."

All of these are the kind of non-inflammatory statements expected from the Jazz and so different from the kinds of statements Russell made when he landed with them. Back then, after getting selected in the second round of the 1993 draft, he was inserted as a starter and soon was telling everyone that he one day would be an All-Star.

But after 48 games filled with inconsistency, he summarily was benched. He played little and almost was cut, staying only because Greg Ostertag got injured. He didn't re-emerge until the first game of last year's playoffs.

In it, the Jazz was struggling against Portland and Sloan was searching for a way to get his team jump-started.

"Sometimes," Sloan says now, "guys have to sit there and work to find out how to have a chance to play this game. They have to learn how to do it, how to play it the right way.

"We started Bryon when he first came here as a rookie, but his shot was real questionable and teams wouldn't (guard) him. If you can't make a few shots out of that position, we're in trouble.

"But the most important thing about a person in that situation is this: Is he able to sit down, try to figure out why and do the extra work to make himself a better player? He did."

Russell has been an important piece of the Jazz puzzle ever since, but not even his new role or his new-found security has reawakened his tongue. This is now true no matter the subject, even if that subject is as obvious and as non-controversial as his time in Chicago.

What kinds of things do you remember from there, he'll be asked.

"All I remember is running around playing baseball and having fun with my family," he says.

Were you a Sox or Cubs fan?

"Both. But I was more a Cubs fan than the Sox."

Were you a Bulls fan?

"No. Still aren't, either."

Where did you live?

"On the South Side."

Do you remember what streets?

"Yeah, I do remember. But that's not pertaining to basketball, so I don't want to talk about that."

There. That's Bryon Russell now. All about basketball, and not about talk.